


angel from hell

by deveil



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: All For The Game - Freeform, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Exy (All For The Game), Autistic Kevin Day, Gen, Help, How Do I Tag, M/M, aftg, ill probably tag them once i write a lil more, probably the rest of the foxes too um, um lets hope i figure this out ill probably add more tags later lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26995069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deveil/pseuds/deveil
Summary: Neil Josten has been dead for six years. For six years he has been a guardian angel, completing assignment after assignment, guided by the cold and unfeeling hand of Death. Neil is meant to be a heartless and distant servant of Death, and he is. But with every assignment, behind closed doors and under cover of the dark where even Death can't see, he listens to his assignment's fears and their joys and everything in between.And after everything, as Death intends, he kills them. He does not experience remorse; he is as connected to his assignments as he would be a watch that he dismantles and discovers the inner workings of. Neil expects his next assignment to be the same: simple and predictable. Dismantle. Discover. Discard. But Andrew Minyard is anything but simple and predictable.
Relationships: Kevin Day & Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day & Neil Josten, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi idk what the fuck this is but i've been working on it (in my head ive been imaginarily working on it) for like a m o n t h and now here is the First Chapter i hope you enjoy :)  
> (also ik it's like a lil heavy in the beginning i put so many wORDS but i promise it'll get better probably)

If given the choice between the known and unknown, most would choose the known. There is too much uncertainty in the unknown, and people tend to take comfort in the familiar. Neil Josten is no different. Of course, when he chose to stay, he didn’t know that his memories of the past would be taken from him, turning the familiar into a ghost town of fear and confusion. But he likes to give himself the benefit of the doubt; he was only thirteen, after all. And he had just died. It would only make sense that he was a bit frazzled. 

He lights his cigarette and watches the smoke wind lazily towards the ceiling. Neil Josten has been dead for six years. The details of his death are hazy, but he remembers blood, a flashing blade, and eyes cold as ice. And then a choice. Stay or go? At thirteen, Neil had had enough of running. So he chose to stay. But cheating Death came with a price. Multiple prices, actually. Memory loss. Invisibility. And life. But not his life; no, his life was past its expiration date. It was rotten and spoiled, and Death would not be satisfied with a rotten and spoiled life. 

So Neil became a guardian angel. For six years, assignments have taken over his life, each lasting from a month to more than year, and each ending in an awful, bloody murder. Decapitation. Dismemberment. Exsanguination. He remembers the last one vividly. He had to search up the word when he saw it on his task sheet. He hopes that Death doesn’t make him kill in that manner again. It was time consuming and rather irritating, since his assignment had remained unconscious for only half the process, and was awake and noisy for the rest. 

For each assignment he paraded a different identity: Alex for the raven, Stefan with the golden boy, and Chris when he was assigned to Mary Hatford. Neil doesn’t remember the raven or the golden boy very well, but Mary Hatford was an interesting assignment. She moved around an unhealthy amount, and she seemed to be in the middle of mourning someone. A child, in particular, from what Neil could see of a scratched up photograph she kept in a beat-up wallet. Brown hair, indeterminate features rendered unrecognizable from the creases and scrapes on the paper. Neil remembers wondering vaguely if the child had been taken out by another guardian angel. He hopes not. Angel deaths are painful and drawn out and bloody, and Neil thinks a death like that is too cruel for a child.

Of course, if Neil was assigned a child, he would have to carry out any and all orders he receives. Even the kill order. Guardian angels don’t discriminate. Sometimes the assignment is tall, sometimes they’re afraid, sometimes they’re so young or so old they can’t even stand. But for every assignment, Neil has watched them. He’s seen them at their best and he’s seen them at their worst, and even if guardian angels are forbidden from directly interacting with their assignments unless otherwise specified, he’s spoken to them. Pretty soon, right before he was supposed to finish his first assignment, he realized why interaction was forbidden. His assignment had screamed and pleaded, and Neil’s resolve wavered. He hadn’t particularly cared about that assignment, but he remembered the dark room from a week ago and the whisper: “ _Blades. Knives. They scare me so much I can barely breathe._ ” And Neil had remembered. 

He wished he hadn't. 

Instead of stopping, he had closed his eyes and swung the blade. 

Because that’s how it is. That’s how it’s always been. Blood for blood. A life for a life. 

And that’s why he’s here, cross-legged on the counter of a dingy dorm room with a cigarette between his fingers, Death slowly branding his next assignment into his mind: a laughing face and a name. _Andrew Minyard_ . He mouths the name to himself, rolling the syllables along his tongue. _Andrew Minyard_. He’s eager to find out how this one ticks; the face in his mind is laughing, but the eyes are empty. Neil is curious as to what makes a man with such empty eyes laugh with such vigour. 

His cigarette has burned to the filter without him taking a drag, and he grinds it out on the counter before tossing it into the trashcan by the sink. He doesn’t much like the nicotine, but something about the smoke comforts him for reasons he can’t comprehend. Probably something to do with the past that he can no longer remember. 

He cracks his knuckles and glances at the clock. Neil likes to run into his assignment before he gets his first list of tasks, not for any particular reason; it’s become a sort of ritual to familiarize himself with the assignment before Death sticks her hand into the ugly mixing bowl of guardian angel duties and assignment tasks and starts stirring. But if Andrew doesn’t show up in the next ten minutes, Neil will leave. He has a life. If Andrew doesn’t think it’s worth it to show up in his own dorm room sometime during the day, Neil doesn’t have any obligation to stick around.

He whips around as the dorm room door opens. _Finally_. But the man standing in the doorway is not Andrew; his hair is too black and his eyes are too green and the small 2 on his cheek is not supposed to be there. Neil slides off the counter with a sigh. It’s possible he broke into the wrong dorm. He’ll have to check the records again. Or not. Maybe he’ll just go straight to Columbia and pick up his first task sheet. 

He hovers by the counter and waits impatiently for the man to move out of the doorway so Neil can slip past. A price of many for cheating Death, although this one feels more like a prize: invisibility to everyone. Of course, there are a few exceptions, like an angel’s assignment and people that the angel knew before they died, but Neil never concerned himself with that. He suspects he knew very few people before he died, mainly because the only people he’s ever directly spoken to have been his assignments. He’s attributed this to his general lack of patience when it comes to people, and this man is no exception. 

But there is something off about this one. His gaze doesn’t glance off Neil like most others do; instead he stares directly at Neil. his eyes wide and disbelieving. Neil waves experimentally. The man looks over his shoulder out the door and Neil snorts to himself—it was stupid of him to assume that the man could see him—when the man turns back to Neil and says, “What are you doing here?”

Neil freezes. Nothing in his career as a guardian angel has prepared him for the moment when a person who is not his assignment tries to speak to him. Every fiber of his being screams at him to run. But when he chose to stay, Neil knew there would be no more running. So he plants his feet and lies. “I was sent to check the lights,” Neil says, gesturing vaguely at the ceiling. 

The man glances up, towards the light that is very much still working. “I don’t understand.”

Neil edges towards the door, his heart thundering. He should have double checked the records. He should have been hiding. He should have been more careful. “I just have to grab my tools. I’ll be right back.”

The man backs up to block the doorway. His gestures are quick and nervous and he refuses to meet Neil’s eyes, behaviour Neil finds curiously at odds with his bold words. Neil stops and looks up. The man is easily half a foot taller than Neil, and Neil is momentarily irritated by the man’s absurd height before his fear washes it away. “What.”

“I feel like I should call someone.”

Neil’s mouth curves into a smile, one he knows is as pleasant as broken glass. “Try it.”

The man half-turns towards the hallway and Neil ducks around him, fear making him run faster than ever before. He hears a yell behind him and resists the urge to look over his shoulder. Even if the man had called someone over, they wouldn’t have been able to see Neil anyways, wasting both theirs and Neil’s time. Normally, this would have amused Neil, as it had when his earlier assignments had tried to prove their sanity to the people around them—to no avail—but meeting someone from his past life has flipped everything upside down. It is yet another thing Neil will have to contend with, along with the tedious tasks he has to complete before the kill order is sent. 

And the man knew Neil from before. Neil’s past life is another unknown he tends to avoid and, if his awful death is any indication, he knows it was terrible. If that man recognizes Neil, would he come seeking revenge for something that Neil doesn’t even remember? Neil is essentially immortal—age would not be the thing that kills him—but that man may end Neil’s life because of some misplaced grudge or fear.

Neil will have to figure out how to avoid him until he can finish this assignment.

He turns a corner at random and immediately runs into someone. It is like running into a brick wall and Neil stumbles back, rubbing his chest as he regards his new assignment. The man in front of him—Andrew Minyard, Neil remembers—is even shorter than Neil is and has a smile slashed across his face. Something twists in Neil’s chest and he coughs painfully. Andrew smiles wider and presses his knuckles into his cheekbone, where the skin is already reddening from the impact of running into Neil. 

“In a hurry?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The glass / Stared back at me a half-familiar face / Yet something hoped for. When at last you came / It was as if the distant mirror spoke." -Mirrors, by Elizabeth Jennings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly i just wanna write more interaction between kandreil it's so fun

At first glance, Andrew Minyard isn’t much to look at. Neil looks at him and sees a crazed smile and wild hair, and his first instinct is to back away. He suppresses that. His second instinct is to strike that smile off his face. He suppresses that too. He’s supposed to be protecting Andrew, after all, not punching him in the face. Instead, like a civilized human being, he holds out his hand to introduce himself. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t looking where I was going. I’m Neil.”

Andrew stares at Neil’s hand like it’s covered in blood and missing three fingers. After a moment, Neil drops his hand. Usually, he gets to know his assignments a little before casually mentioning that he’s technically dead and now a guardian angel, but Neil has a feeling he might have to skip a few steps with Andrew. “I’ve been assigned as your guardian angel.”

Andrew drags his stare back up to Neil’s face. Neil doesn’t back down. Andrew opens his mouth to say something, no doubt rude and offensive, when a couple of students pass by, whispering as they go. Neil catches the words  _ losing his mind _ and  _ who is he talking to _ and goes heady with relief; meeting that green-eyed man had shaken him more than he thought.

But Andrew’s response is different. His eyes narrow and he taps Neil’s cheek with his pinky. Neil waves Andrew away with a scowl. He’s had his scars for six years, but he is still uncomfortable with people touching them. 

And then Andrew is slamming Neil against the wall with his forearm across Neil’s throat, his arm heavy and painful as Neil struggles to breathe. Neil hears doors open along the hall, but he can’t see anything past the startling gleam in Andrew’s eyes.

“My own personal demon!” Andrew says with delight. 

“Angel,” Neil chokes out. Andrew laughs at Neil’s back talk and, in one smooth motion, releases Neil and steps out of his space. 

“If you’re here to make me look like I’m losing my mind, I’m afraid you’re a few years too late.”

“I’m here to protect you.”

Andrew looks entertained. “You are—”

“Your guardian angel.”

“—a figment of my imagination.” Andrew finishes. “A hallucination.” He gestures at the students around him, all of them staring at Andrew with wide eyes. Andrew doesn’t seem to care. “No one can see you. No one can hear you. You’re mine and mine alone, and do you know what that means, demon?”

Neil refuses to play along, but Andrew has no need for Neil’s response. “I hate you.”

The words are spoken without inflection, as if Andrew is noting the weather. Neil is beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that this assignment will not be an easy one. “Hate is a strong word to use towards someone you’ve just met.”

Andrew wags his finger at Neil. “Oh, but I haven’t.”

“What?”

Andrew leans in. “You are glass and mirrors,” he whispers, and then he smiles that awful, empty smile. Neil waits for him to elaborate, but Andrew pulls away and strolls down the hall without a backward glance, his fingers knotted behind his head. As if nothing happened. The students, who had come out into the hall because of the noise Andrew made, stare after him for a moment before retreating back into their rooms, confusion evident on their faces.

Neil can empathize. That entire conversation had probably taken about thirty seconds, but Neil feels so drained that he can’t help but wonder if it had actually taken an hour.

He trails after Andrew, sidestepping students as he goes; they may not be able to see him, but that doesn’t mean they can’t feel it if he bumps into them. 

He rubs his throat ruefully. Maybe he won’t have to talk to Andrew at all. Maybe he shouldn’t. Maybe he can just finish this assignment with minimal interaction. 

Andrew arrives at his door and Neil feels his stomach drop to his shoes. He was in the right dorm after all. And that means—

The door swings open and the man with the 2 on his cheek steps out. He sees Neil and moves to the side to let Andrew pass. “You don’t have your tools.”

Neil swallows back his fear and pushes aside his desire to run. “I have business with Andrew.”

Andrew sticks his head out at the mention of his name and says, “No, you don’t.” Then he looks up at the other man and then back to Neil, surprise evident on his face. “Kevin can see you.”

Kevin looks irritated. “Of course I can. He was sitting on our counter five minutes ago, and then he ran out saying he needs to get his tools.” He glances at Neil. “You ran awfully fast for someone that just wanted to fix the light.”

“He was lying, Kevin,” Andrew says, already disinterested in the conversation. He disappears back into his dorm. Neil hears the sound of coffee brewing. 

Kevin doesn’t look like a man that was just lied to; instead, he looks thoughtful. “I couldn’t even tell you were lying.”

Neil thought of the sweat beading on his forehead and his obvious attempts to leave the dorm. It’s possible that Kevin is not the most observant person. If this is true, Neil realizes, Kevin might not recognize him at all. Neil aggressively quashes the flicker of hope; hope makes him lenient. 

Kevin shakes his head and turns his attention back to Neil. He still won’t meet his eyes. “What do you want from Andrew? He doesn't like to share, so you probably won’t get what you want.”

Neil sighs inwardly. It usually takes longer for him to get this exhausted, but he already feels like he needs a decade-long nap. He is so tired he doesn’t even try to lie. “I don’t know yet. I just wanted to say hi.”

Kevin’s gaze drifts to the ceiling. Neil looks up too and only sees a flickering flourescent light. It doesn’t seem like Neil can do anything else here; he might as well just go straight to Columbia and pick up his task sheet early. He is about to turn away when Kevin says, “We have practice soon.”

Neil waits for him to say more, but Kevin stays quiet, as if waiting for an answer.

“Don’t invite him,” Andrew calls from inside the dorm. “He won’t be interested in your Exy.”

_ Exy _ . Neil feels a shiver run through him at the word. The raven had played Exy. The sport had been his life, but it had also stomped him into the ground and left him for dead. Neil didn’t understand how someone could be so devoted to a sport that doesn't care for you at all, but he couldn’t deny the rush he got whenever he watched a particularly riveting game. 

More than once, he’s wondered if he played Exy before he died. It would explain the strange magnetism of the sport, that chill that ran down his spine whenever it was mentioned. He preferred to avoid the sport precisely because of this suspicion, but it’s almost impossible for him to refuse it when it’s right in front of him.

“Can I come?” The words come out in a rush, and Neil wants to reel them back in as soon as he says them. But Kevin only smiles, a real, genuine smile that Neil suspects is as rare as it is blinding.

“We leave in five minutes,” he says, and Neil feels a rush of anticipation and the inevitable fear associated with the past. He tries not to let it show. One practice. That’s all. And then he’ll focus on Andrew. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hjhjhjskd this teeny chapter took me like 5 hours bc i kept flipping over to tumblr someone take social media away from me  
> anyways thank you for reading my fic youre v cool <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote.” -Sylvia Plath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao posting schedule whomst

Neil sits on the back of one of the chairs in the stands, his feet braced on the seat. The shadows are a comfort, but he tries not to make it obvious that he is hiding. Apparently, he is not subtle enough; he catches Andrew’s mocking smile as he steps onto the court.

And so Neil watches. He watches Kevin dart across the court, his stick a blur as he fires a shot at Andrew. He watches the rest of the Foxes—Kevin told him on the car ride to the court that their team is the Palmetto Foxes—as they catch and throw the ball, their movements quick and compact. 

And he watches Andrew. Andrew is tiny. So tiny. It’s even more obvious on the huge, orange court of Palmetto, where all the players are above five feet and the walls thrice that. But Andrew wields his stick with brutal competency and Neil finds himself leaning forward as Andrew smacks yet another shot away from his goal. 

But Andrew misses as many shots as he deflects. And most of the time, it seems he misses on purpose. Neil watches as Kevin storms across the court towards the goal after Andrew watched yet another ball sail past him. Andrew’s behaviour is so strange and erratic that Neil feels almost dizzy trying to make sense of his moods. Andrew’s inconsistency on the court reminds Neil of his outburst in the hall and then his casual brush-off at his dorm, his moods fickle and ever-changing and spinning Neil in circles. Neil can’t help but think that he may never figure out Andrew Minyard after all.

Kevin reams out Andrew on the court and Andrew leans on his huge goalie stick, making his lack of interest clear. Eventually, Kevin gives up and stomps away, the fingers of his left hand tangled in the netting of his stick. 

Neil couldn’t respect the Exy the raven had played because that Exy had simply not cared. But the Exy that Kevin, and even Andrew at times, plays is fast and passionate, and Neil can feel that passion with every swing of their sticks. Neil doesn’t know if the passion is his own or if it’s theirs, but what he does know is that he can never play. Not in this lifetime. No, Neil has been given a second chance, and the price he has to pay will not let him play Exy. No matter how much he wants to. He sets aside the idea of Exy with finality.

Before Neil knows it, the Foxes are finished with their practice. He stays in the stands until the last of them file into the locker room. He hops off his chair and makes his way to the exit. He doesn’t think he can go to another practice. Watching the Foxes play had made him feel human, but it reminded him that his life right now isn’t much of a life at all. What is he doing besides killing? Besides following Death around like a lost puppy?

He shakes his head roughly. Thoughts like that lead nowhere pleasant.

“Enjoy practice?”

Neil turns and comes face-to-face with Andrew. Andrew is out of his gear and back in his all-black ensemble, his wild hair curled into sweaty tendrils. 

“I enjoyed watching you miss all your shots,” Neil says. “You’re not much of a goalie.”

Which was a blatant lie. Neil had seen how efficiently and savagely Andrew could shut down the goal. Of course, that was only when he wanted to.

Andrew ignores this. “Kevin seems to think you’re as much of an Exy freak as he is.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being enthusiastic about a sport.”

Andrew’s face splits into a smile, but Neil is beginning to realize his smiles are about as expressive as a blank expression. “I’m still trying to decide if you’re real or not. You move like you’re real. You lie like you’re real.” Andrew rests his finger against Neil’s pulse at his throat, and this time Neil doesn’t push him away. “But you come out of nowhere, claiming to be my guardian angel even though no one can see you, and I’m supposed to believe you’re real?”

Neil shrugs. “That decision is up to you.”

Impossibly, Andrew’s smile widens. He turns away from Neil to greet Kevin as the other man comes out of the locker room. 

Kevin’s eyes are shining. “Did you like it?” he asks Neil. 

Neil thinks about Kevin’s lightning-quick movements, the sound of the ball striking the wall, the shine in his eye whenever Exy is even mentioned. 

And he remembers the raven, how fast he was and how accurate his shots, and he wonders briefly how Kevin could have such a similar style of playing to a man with a glint in his eye almost identical to Kevin’s, yet with such a sinister edge to it that even Neil drew back at the sight of it.

“You’re an excellent player,” Neil says.

“Well, yes. But did you like it?”

Neil nods, feeling a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth at Kevin’s simple yet factual acknowledgement of his own talent. “I did.”

“Excellent,” Kevin says, satisfied. “I will teach you how to play.”

Neil fumbles between responses—” _ I’m invisible _ ,” perhaps wouldn’t be the best response; “ _ I think I’ve played, you know, before I died _ ,” probably wouldn’t do either—but Andrew smoothly interrupts the imminently awkward conversation.

“We’re going to Columbia now, and since Neil is following me everywhere I suppose he’ll be coming with.”

“Fuck you,” Neil says, which he deems an appropriate response in this situation. Kevin blinks.

What Neil won’t tell them is that he intended to go to Columbia later that evening anyways. His task sheets are to be given to him by another guardian angel, one with the gift of communicating directly with Death. No matter the circumstances, vague instructions were placed into his mind to find the other guardian angel at a club called Eden’s Twilight. Tacky, Neil thought, but he’s begun to learn not to expect much more than that from humans. Weekly meetings are expected, and Neil has prepared himself for long journeys alternating between walking and hitch hiking along the highway. But if Andrew intends to go to Columbia anyways, Neil can catch a (much faster) ride with him and make a brief detour to Eden’s Twilight before going wherever Andrew plans to go.

Neil follows them out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> k i honest to goodness don't know how ao3 works so if u see me doing some weird shit no u dont <3  
> anyways you can find me on instagram @andreilskeys and tumblr @andreils-keys so if you just wanna scream about aftg or any other book (chances are i've read it) or really anything feel free to drop me a message :) k babes until next time


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